Carne Adovada

And the first post on REMCooks for 2014 is a chile recipe!!! Are you really surprised???? It is absolutely delicious!

Happy 2014!!!! This is how we greeted the New Year…with Carne Adovada. Now, Carne Adovada is not to be confused with carne adobada. Carne adobada is a Mexican dish, adobada meaning marinated. Adobada consists of meat marinated in a spicy chile and vinegar based sauce known as adobo. The meat typically is pork, however, other cuts of meats may be used, as well. Adobada is made by pureeing soaked chiles, along with vinegar and other preferred flavoring ingredients, to form a sauce. The meat is typically covered in the sauce and stored in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours to allow the sauce flavors to permeate the meat and add a deep flavor.

Carne Adovada, on the other hand, is a New Mexican dish consisting of pork cooked in a sauce of dried New Mexico red chiles with vinegar, garlic, onions, oregano, cilantro and sometimes cumin and other spices. Like every New Mexican dish there are loads of different variations and techniques. Some like to roast the pork; whereas, others like to braise it. Some people like big chunks of pork versus small cubes. Still, other like theirs shredded, slow cooked, meltingly tender and blazingly spicy. Then there are the differences and variations in spices used.

This is my version of Carne Adovada. It is incredibly flavorful with great depth of flavor. It has some heat but not overpowering, searing heat. Guaranteed you will want to lick the plate when you’re finished. Now, this is what I did.

NOTES: * I used a blend of chiles, mild New Mexico Red chiles and Hot Sandia chiles. You can use whatever chiles you desire as the flavor of the dish will change with the type of chile used. Also, the 2-1/2 oz is the weight AFTER seeding and stemming the dried chiles.

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35 thoughts on “Carne Adovada”

Quite obviously I have never cooked a dish with its recipe emanating from New Mexico. So this is an exciting way to begin the year up your way!! And try it I shall soonest Cinnamon and oregano and some of the curry spices: curious me really wants to know how all of this tastes!! Nearly 2 kg of meat is quite an amount for this currently single lady to cook, but if friends will not come for a taste test it seems this would both keep a few days or [shock and horrors] freeze? [Oh, that apron is quite a piece of art in itself: the only BAM I know is Bobbi Marshall of the wonderful HK blog fame!}

😀 Thanks, Eha. It is wonderfully tasty and the cinnamon is what takes this dish over the top. The apron was a gift because i love cajun/creole food. BAM is from Emeril Lagasse, an American chef from Boston who worked at the Commander’s Palace in New Orleans with the Brennan family. He was THE chef of New Orleans and has several of his own restaurants in New Orleans, now. When he would do his TV show he would “kick it up a notch” with spices and cayenne pepper and yell “BAM.” 😀

What fun!! And I know something new again 🙂 ! Am probably giving my age away but have eaten at Brennan’s [methinks now closed] and Commander’s Palace quite a few times way back!! Liked the second better than the first which used to be quite well known for its Eggs Benedict and champagne brunches in the days I would still eat such 🙂 !

I’ve spent many dinners and brunches at both. My preference is and always has been Commanders Palace. Brennan’s closed on June 28, 2013 due to a Brennan family dispute. The Brennan family is supposed to re-open in a new location sometime in 2014.

Thanks, Marie, for the nice compliment. 🙂 I bought the butcher block 10 years ago and it is one of the best purchases I have ever made. Of course, I just received a very special cutting board for Christmas with a blogging challenge. It will make its debut January 23, 2014. Be prepared. 🙂

Your chili sounds good with ingredients I will have no trouble finding. I don’t have a food scale (shame on me)… about how many dried New Mexico chilies do you think I would need to use for in this chili?

Hi, Karen. Hope your are doing OK with the winter blizzard bearing down on you. I think you will really like this chile recipe. The cinnamon adds a wonderful dimension to the dish and gives it somewhat of a mole flavor but without the chocolate. I believe I used 6 – 8 Red New Mexico mild chiles and 6 Sandia hot chiles. Now, remember, the age of chiles and dryness will affect their weight. The Red New Mexico mild chiles I had were roughly 5 inches long, soft & pliable. The Sandia chiles I have had for about 7 months. Even vacuum sealed they are pretty dehydrated. Taste it as you blend it. If it needs more heat, add another hot chile. Also, you can use ground chiles if you prefer. It’s just so hard to get ground New Mexico chiles and the ancho chiles (typical chile powder) will make this dish a little on the sweet side. If you choose to use a blend of chiles, i.e. ground chipotle, Ancho, New Mexico, etc. you need 3/4 cup.

Thanks for the walk-through. Following your suggestion, I have this on the list to do over the next couple of weeks. It looks delicious. I do have to also complement you on your fine apron. A lot jazzier than the old rags I tend to wear. For some reason, they tend to not make it to the washing machine too often and get what I call “character”. The Wife has a different word for it.
Happy New Year to you both,
Conor

Thanks, Conor. You actually have the chiles to make this dish and with the winter upon us it is an ideal dish. As for the apron, I recently washed all of the aprons and removed as much of the character as I could. This was the first time I had worn the characterless apron so it seemed like a good time to showcase it. Of course, it does wash out some of the colors of the chile in the blender. 😮 Oh, the price you pay for style and fashion. 😉

Hi, Stefan. This is a great dish. The chiles you have will be perfect for it. Given the strong flavor of the chiles, it really doesn’t make much difference as to the stock. I had beef stock but not pork stock although deboning the pork shoulder did give me some bone for a later pork stock. 🙂

We just had this for dinner. I’m a bit puzzled as there was a bitter note to the sauce that I can’t explain very well. Perhaps it was a bad idea to include chipotles in the mix of chiles? Cooking the pork sous-vide worked very well. I think it was a one off problem, so I’ll try it again.

Hmmm…We are both puzzled about the bitterness. With the honey and the cinnamon, we found it rather sweet yet earthy. The vinegar added a slight brightness. The smokiness from the chipotle very well could have been responsible for the bitterness.

I was a bit tired last night so I think I missed the obvious reason for the bitterness because of that. You see, I cooked the carne adovada simultaneously in the same water as a ham hock I had smoked first (which we had tonight and was delicious by the way). The problem with cooking something sous-vide that has been smoked, is that the smoke leaks out into the water of the sous-vide. Since the smoke can leak out of one bag into the water, it can also leak from the water into the other bag…with the carne adovada. I should have thought of that before deciding to cook them together (which seemed such a good idea, because the carne adovado needed 48 hours at 57 degrees and the ham hock 72 hours at 57 degrees; both went in on Sunday and we had the adovada on Tuesday and the ham hock on Wednesday).
I will try again soon!

Hi, Aly. No. Neither of us are from New Mexico; however, Baby Lady is from El Paso which is close enough. 😀 We both love New Mexico and if you look at our About page you will see we were married in the Loretto Chappel, Santa Fe, New Mexico. I hope he likes the dish. 🙂

Hello Richard, this is a great carne adavada! Lovely spices and lots of love went into this dish! I love your blog and look forward to keeping in touch. PS, I also love your apron! Take care, BAM (from Hong Kong)